r/ABA • u/Kind-Ad4622 • 4d ago

Advice Needed ABA in Schools

Hey everyone! I just wanted your opinion on ABA being used in schools, especially for our special needs learners or children with social-emotional challenges. I have been working with a SPED teacher since the beginning of the school year and every opportunity she gets, she always mentions that, "ABA isn't the solution" and that "I need to go back to a clinic" as well as not allowing me to practice my ABA interventions (even though that's why I was hired by the principal) and actively discouraging me. Is this just a bad teacher? Should I stay in the school district? Go back to a clinic? Any advice on the matter would be appreciated. 😌

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u/pantsforfatties 3d ago

The majority of publications in ABA from 1968-1978 were education-based rather than AUT/conceptual/OBM, whathaveyou. Just in JABA, I think it was 50%. The year after Science and Human Behavior was published (1953), Skinner published The Science of Learning and the Art of Teaching (1954). ABA has always been about learning, and early behaviorists were focused on changing the learning experiences of all students (see: Lindsley, Skinner, Keller, Schoenfeld, etc). Also look into Project Follow Through. The idea that ABA doesn't belong in schools is offensive, ahistorical, and ignorant.

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u/Kind-Ad4622 3d ago

What an interesting and informal piece of information, I absolutely agree as not only is behavior everywhere, but is absolutely needed, especially in educational settings.